February 13, 2011 - Epiphany 6, Year A (RCL)
The apostle Paul
is on a roll.
Chapter three
of the first letter to the Corinthians,
and he is back to his favorite topic, or so it seems,
the divisions in the local church.
The first time round
he focussed on the way they
kept identifying themselves with one leader or another,
usually the one who had baptized them.
Paul’s advice
was to get over it, and focus on the one they all had in common,
Jesus Christ.
This time
he takes a slightly different tack.
This time
Paul talks about why it is
that there is so much fussing and fighting in the church.
And it’s not simply
that the Corinthians are a group
of particularly grumpy people.
The thing is,
that they seem to have only got hold of half the story of Jesus.
They seem to understand the basics, more or less,
enough at least
to have been baptized.
And from what Paul tells them his letter, or perhaps more
what he doesn’t tell them,
they know the story.
They’ve heard about jesus healing people and preaching and teaching,
they know about his death on the cross,
and his rising to new life.
They believe he is the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior.
But what they’ve missed out on
is the other half.
When Jesus says, “Do you believe?”
they say, “Yes, we believe.”
But when he says, “Come follow me,”
they aren’t so sure.
That’s why Paul says
they need milk, not solid meat.
They’ve only picked up on part of what it is
to be a Christian.
Because it’s not just a matter of intellectual assent,
of believing in your mind.
That’s part of Paul’s whole point in the last chapter - the way God works
is not just wisdom as we normally think of it.
It’s something totally different, a wisdom that comes
not just in how we think
but in how we live.
Being a Christian
is about believing in Jesus, yes,
but even more
it’s about following him.
It’s about your life
coming to be like his life,
about being transformed.
That’s what Paul’s talking about
when he says that their lives are “of the flesh.”
He’s saying
that they haven’t been allowing
God’s spirit to speak to their spirits,
they haven’t been allowing
the Holy Spirit to live in them
and to shape who they are and how they live.
And because of that,
Paul has to keep on going over the same things
again and again.
Not because he wants to be a broken record,
but because their lives don’t seem to show the evidence of following Jesus,
and the result of that
is that their witness to Christ
is compromised.
And so Paul goes back to the basics, milk, rather than sold food.
And he reminds them
about how it is
that they come to be Christian.
And it’s not simply
because Paul or Apollos or whoever else
baptized them.
It’s because God has been at work in them.
And here Paul uses two metaphors, fields and buildings.
We are the field, the building.
For a field to flourish
it takes more than one sort of work. First you need to plow the ground,
and then plant the seed.
Then it needs sunshine and water,
and if there’s not enough rain, you have to water it.
Any weeds
that might strangle the new seedlings
have to be pulled.
Until finally harvest time comes,
and you can pick whatever you have sown.
But the thing is,
it doesn’t matter how hard you work,
if the weather is wrong, if there’s not enough sun
or no water available,
or the seed is just no good,
nothing happens.
It’s out of your control.
Paul suggests
that we are like fields.
God provides the seeds,
and then various people do the plowing and the planting and watering and weeding.
One plows, building relationships. Another plants, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ,
Another pours on some water that they have collected last time it rained, teaching the word of God, feeding with the sacraments. Another pulls up the weeds, the things that are getting in the way.
And all the time,
God is at work.
Remember the parable of the sower?
Where Jesus talks about seed being scattered on all different ground. Some is dry, and some is stony, and some is full of weeds, and some is fertile.
And where the fertile soil is,
the seeds grow.
And Jesuw says
that those bits of ground
are like us, as we hear the good news.
Sometimes we’re like the good ground, that receives the seed
and provides the nutrients
and with the help of sun and rain
the seed grows.
We hear the good news of Jesus,
we receive it gladly,
and we invite Christ into our lives to live in us and transform us.
Sometimes, though,
we’re like the stony ground, where the seed just lies on the surface and never gets deep enough to grow properly.
We hear the good news,
and say, “that’s nice,” but never do anything about it.
And sometimes we’re like dry ground,
where the moisture just runs off,
and the seed starts
but wilts away quickly.
We hear the good news of Jesus,
and we receive it gladly,
but then something else comes along, and we forget
what we once heard.
And sometimes
we’re even like the weedy ground,
where the seed gets a really good start,
but eventually the weeds grow up
and choke the plants out.
We hear the good news of Jesus,
and we receive it gladly,
and we invite Jesus into our lives.
But time passes,
and there are a whole lot of other things going on,
and eventually
they take up more and more of our lives
until there isn’t much room for God
any more.
Jesus’ story ends there, a little sadly, if you happen to be stony or dry or weedy ground. But Paul takes it a bit further. Because he knows it from his own experience. The first time he heard about Jesus,
he rejected him.
He was not just stony ground, he was a big, solid, rock.
But God got to work on him,
and found a tiny place to plant a seed,
and the people of God got to work,
and watered and weeded,
and suddenly Paul
was a field of rich, fertile earth, helping to grow God’s kingdom.
And Paul seems to be saying,
we’re all fields,
and some of us might even have begun out as stony or dry or weedy,
but God can work in us,
and with the help of his servants, people like Paul and Apollos,
people who pray and teach and guide us,
we can become fertile seeds,
places where the gospel of Christ thrives and grows
and is evident in everything we do.
Now you might think at this point, that the metaphor
has got out of hand.
And you’re right.
Fields don’t have minds of their own.
We do.
And so at this point,
we have to step outside the metaphor.
The apostle Paul is, I think, saying two things.
First,
remember that your faith comes from God. It is God who is at work in you, and you all have that in common.
Second,
God is at work in you. So co-operate!
And it’s this second thing
that makes sense of our Old Testament and gospel readings today.
Both of them seem pretty legalistic.
Follow the commands.
Don’t lust, or hold on to your anger.
Or you will pay.
But I think there’s something else at the heart of this.
They’re saying,
live like a follower of God in Christ.
Don’t just pay lip service.
Be willing to follow Christ and let God transform you.
Let God show you a different way.
There’s no pretending. This isn’t easy. I’d really rather
do things my own way, whether it’s holding onto grudges,
or not having the humility to ask forgiveness when I’ve hurt someone, or swearing,
or conducting my relationships the way I want.
Not that I necessarily do any of those, but you get the idea.
We like to do things our way.
We don’t like letting go,
ceding control
to anyone, let along someone we can’t even see.
But if we don’t
then the seed won’t grow in us.
Or our faith will wither
and die.
God is
at work in us.
God is at work,
with the help of his servants.
Our job
is to open ourselves to the spirit of God
and to co-operate in the work of transformation.
To step out in faith and follow Jesus
even when it’s hard, or even scary.
Knowing that God is at work in us, and will bless us.
© Raewynne J. Whiteley 2010